


the death of a herondale

by badasslightwood (thevoidiscalling)



Category: The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: F/F, Isabelle Lightwood Deserves Nice Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:02:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24463216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thevoidiscalling/pseuds/badasslightwood
Summary: Clary doesn't use Raziel to raise Jace from the dead in City of Glass.
Relationships: Clary Fray/Isabelle Lightwood
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a bit of this, then abandoned it. I thought it should be at least somewhere, so it's not entirely deleted from existence, but do not expect updates unless at some point I regain my motivation for this story or if it gets a lot of attention from people wanting more.  
> This is also my first fic in a while, so go easy on me. I am a bit rusty.

Clary bounced off of the wall and spun, kicking out and knocking over the training dummy nearest her. Breathing heavily, she lashed out with a dagger and sliced off two more dummies’ heads, then slashed the torso of a third. She was about to start destroying another when she heard something behind her, and whipped around to see Alec leaning on the doorframe of the training room. He looked embarrassed to have been spotted.  
“You’re getting good,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “Jace would have been proud.”  
Her breath caught in her throat, and all of a sudden, the emotions she’d been ignoring with training were flooding back. Jace had died a few weeks ago, on the night Valentine raised Raziel, and Clary couldn’t think about it without her eyes burning with tears. She blinked, hard, and nodded at Alec.  
“Isabelle made dinner, come eat with us.” Alec noticed Clary’s frown and laughed. “I supervised, don’t worry. It’s perfectly edible.”  
Clary nodded again, not trusting herself to say anything in case she burst out into tears, and followed Alec downstairs to the kitchen. Before Jace’s death, Alec had been anything but nice to her, but lately he had obviously been trying to make up for that and bond with her. Clary appreciated it, as awkward as it sometimes was.  
They reached the kitchen in silence, and as Clary turned the corner she saw Isabelle stirring something. When Isabelle heard them come in, she turned, smile plastered on her face.  
“Hey, guys!” she exclaimed, a little too brightly. “Spaghetti bolognaise for dinner tonight.”  
“Smells good,” said Clary, mirroring Isabelle’s smile. Whenever Isabelle was around Clary, she seemed to throw up walls to hide her grief. Clary didn’t blame her; she wished she could do that herself, sometimes, but she didn’t seem to possess the skill Isabelle had at hiding her feelings. When she did try to stop feeling, even for a moment, Clary felt as if she might burst.  
Alec finished eating before Clary and Isabelle, and slid out of his seat quickly. “Shadowhunter stuff to sort out,” was the vague excuse he gave. It was obviously a lie, but neither Clary nor Isabelle questioned him further. Alec’s leaving meant Clary and Isabelle were left alone in silence, the only sound being the scraping of forks on plates. Clary hadn’t thought she’d miss Alec’s awkward attempts at small talk, but she found herself doing just that as she desperately tried to come up with something to talk about.  
“So, how’s Maryse?”  
“My mom?” Isabelle’s smile was knocked off her face for a split second, but it came back in full force. “She’s doing as fine as she can be, considering. How’s Jocelyn?”  
“She’s fine too. Upset that I’m staying here, rather than at Luke’s with her, but she’s not pushing me too hard on it.”  
“Why are you staying here, then?” Isabelle’s question came out interrogative.  
Clary blinked at her. “Uh, I don’t know. I still want to be a Shadowhunter, and I can train better here than at Luke’s.” She didn’t add that being at the Institute made her feel closer to Jace. It felt wrong to bring him up, seeing that Isabelle was clearly trying so hard not to.  
“Have you been on a patrol since…” Isabelle’s voice trailed off, not wanting to say the words. “Have you been on a patrol lately?”  
“No, I haven’t.” She’d spent most of her waking time in the training room, or having coffee with Simon (or rather, Clary would have coffee and Simon would drink warm blood from an opaque coffee cup), or staring at a blank piece of paper with a pencil in her hand, trying to muster up the will to draw.  
Isabelle grinned, a genuine one for once. “Come with me tonight. You can unleash some aggression on something other than our poor training dummies.”  
Clary opened her mouth to agree, but Isabelle was already leaving the table. “Meet me in the training room at eight and we can look at weapons,” she said over her shoulder. “You don’t have any of your own yet, do you?” She dumped her plate and cutlery on a counter and left without waiting for the answer to her question, leaving Clary alone.

The door to the master bedroom was fairly nondescript, panelled and brown with a brass doorhandle, but it struck Isabelle with more fear than any demon she’d faced before. Fear for her mother, and whether she’d manage to recover—Shadowhunters were accustomed to death, but two of Maryse’s children had died at the same time, and Robert was spending more and more time in Idris, away from her—and fear that Isabelle wouldn’t be good enough, or strong enough, to support her through it all.   
Isabelle sucked in a deep breath, then let it out again, before knocking gently on the door. After a few seconds with no response, she slowly pushed it open to find her mom sleeping sprawled on the double bed, still wearing her gear, her duvet in a pile at her feet.  
“Mom?” Isabelle whispered. Crossing the room to shut the curtains and stop light streaming in, she neatly stacked the plates that were scattered across the windowsill, the desk, and the floor. She crept to the end of the bed, taking off her mom’s boots and placing them neatly by the door. As carefully as she could, Isabelle picked up the duvet and tucked it around Maryse, squeezing her hand gently before grabbing the dirty plates and turning to go. She had reached the door when she heard a soft voice. “Izzy?”  
Isabelle stopped without turning around, hand on the doorframe. “Yeah, mom?”  
“Thank you.”  
Isabelle blinked at the words and left without saying anything in return, closing the door gently. A wave of guilt crashed over her and she let herself sink to the floor. She hadn’t been expecting the “thank you” from her mom. If she let herself be honest, Isabelle had been bitter at her since she locked herself in her room and left Isabelle and Alec to run the Institute and do all the things that she should be doing. Maryse was supposed to be Isabelle’s mom; she was meant to be the person Isabelle could go to for support and comfort. Isabelle wasn’t supposed to be the one protecting her from the world. She felt immensely guilty every time she thought it, but Isabelle sometimes blamed her for the intense amount of stress Isabelle was under: she had to do most of the running of the Institute, as Alec tended to disappear without warning; she had to look after her mom, making sure she ate enough, slept enough, and didn’t let her room and belongings fall into chaos; she had to keep track of Clary, who’d obviously decided that what Isabelle needed was another grieving Shadowhunter to look after; and on top of all of that, she needed to keep doing normal Shadowhunter things, like fighting demons. The demon-fighting bit wasn’t all that bad, she supposed. It gave her a chance to work out some of her aggression.  
Isabelle realised she’d been crying when she raised a hand to her face and it came away damp. Damn it. She hated crying in public. She got up, balancing the plates on one hand like a waiter, and headed down the corridor to her room.

Surveying the training room from the rafters, Clary deftly balanced in a crouched position. She was steeling herself to jump when Isabelle walked in, surprising her into falling. Clary landed on her feet, but it didn’t stop the fall from hurting her knees, and she sank into a cross-legged position on the floor. There was a look of concern in Isabelle’s eyes.  
“Are you okay?” she asked, extending a hand to help Clary up.  
“Yeah, nothing an iratze can’t fix.” Clary nodded, ignoring the hand to pull out her stele and begin the Mark on her inner calf. Isabelle watched her draw, admiring the careful strokes that formed the Mark, and the look of concentration on Clary’s face as she drew it. When she’d finished, Clary looked up as if she was shocked Isabelle was still there and grabbed the hand that Isabelle hadn’t taken back, pulling herself up.   
“So, where are we going tonight?” said Clary as she let Isabelle lead her over to the weapons.  
Isabelle picked up a slender dagger. “I can’t remember exactly where. Someone reported some demonic activity somewhere downtown, so we’re gonna go check it out.” She balanced the dagger on one finger, turning to Clary for approval.  
“Looks good,” Clary said absent-mindedly, her eyes still searching the case. They settled on a shortsword, stored high up. “This one looks cool,” she said. As she turned to face Isabelle, Clary realised she hadn’t let go of her hand, and did so hastily. Isabelle looked over when Clary severed the contact between them, and Clary thought she caught a hint of disappointment in her face, but it was gone in an instant.  
Humming in approval, Isabelle handed her a pair of regular daggers and a few seraph blades. “Take these as well.”  
Clary thanked her and began storing them on her body, putting some in sheaths on her gear, one dagger in her boot, and holding the shortsword in her hand. She watched as Isabelle did the same, then extended her elbow towards Isabelle. “Shall we?”  
“Hang on, let me put some Marks on you first. I did mine earlier.” Isabelle took Clary’s arm and pushed up the sleeve, placing several runes from the Soundless one on her upper arm to the Accuracy one on her wrist. Linking their elbows, Isabelle smiled. “Let’s go.”


	2. Chapter 2

Following Clary down an alleyway, Isabelle marveled at just how much she’d changed since she’d started training. When Clary had arrived, passed out from demon poison, she had looked so small and fragile in the bed in their ward; just another defenceless mundane. Now, all Marked up, with her bright hair in a ponytail and her stele stuck through it, she looked badass, as all self-respecting Shadowhunters should. Looking at her now, Isabelle could almost see why Jace would have been prepared to trade the world for her; she had all the bearings of a born-and-raised Shadowhunter, and the angelic looks to go along with it.  
Isabelle’s own mental mention of Jace in the past tense made her gasp and stumble, and in an instant, Clary was beside her, light hand on her upper arm. “You okay?”  
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I got lost in my head for a minute.”  
“Okay, let’s keep moving. I’ll race you to the other end of this spooky alleyway.”  
Isabelle didn’t say anything in response; she just started running. She heard Clary swear behind her, and laughed into the wind.  
When they reached the other end, Clary was panting heavily. She’d arrived just after Isabelle, who hadn’t broken a sweat and was inspecting her nails. Isabelle knew her nails were flawless—they always were—she just thought it would piss off Clary. Judging by the look in Clary’s eyes, she was right.  
“Not fair,” she said, between breaths. “You forgot...to put a...Mark.” Clary yanked up her sleeve to show the lack of a stamina rune on her arm.  
Smiling, Isabelle reached over and grabbed the stele from Clary’s hair. She quickly added Stamina to the collection of Marks on Clary’s fair skin, then handed the stele back to her.  
“You couldn’t have used your own stele?” grumbled Clary, sticking it back into her hair. Isabelle didn’t respond, just looked both ways down the street, then crossed.

“Clary!” Clary turned to where Isabelle had yelled her name from and caught the seraph blade she had thrown. She ducked under the swipe of the angry demon she was facing. Rolling on the floor and coming up behind it, Clary whispered Uriel and stabbed the demon in the back of the head. It exploded. Ichor rained down, and Clary instinctively moved to the side to block most of it from hitting Isabelle. That did mean she got hit in the face by a chunk of it, and she winced, but stood her ground until ichor stopped hitting her.  
“Clary?” Isabelle gripped her sleeve from behind her. Clary turned, and Isabelle gasped at the sight. “Clary, by the Angel. You’ve got demon ichor all over you, your face is burning. We’ve got to get back to the Institute.”  
“Mmm.” Clary didn’t show any signs of moving. “Ichor... tastes bad.” Isabelle already had her hands out, ready to catch her, when she slumped and fell, curling up against Isabelle’s chest.

When Clary woke up, she was lying in the Institute’s infirmary, and sun was streaming through the windows, hurting her eyes a little. She could smell bitter medicines, and heard a hushed voice somewhere to her left. Clary sat up.  
“...and I don’t know if she—” The muttering broke off, and Isabelle rushed over to Clary’s bed, a welcome block against the bright light from the window. “You’re awake.”  
“Apparently, yeah.” Clary lifted a hand to run it through her hair, but stopped when her palm hit her forehead and sent a jolt of pain through her whole face.  
The hooded figure of Brother Enoch appeared next to Isabelle.  
Your face was covered in burns, after what happened.  
Clary shuddered. She was sure she’d never get used to the sensation of a Silent Brother speaking in her head. It felt so alien and intrusive.  
We’ve done the best we can, but you will have scars even when it is healed.  
Isabelle nodded sympathetically. “Right now, you’ve just got to rest.”  
“Rest? For how long?”  
At least a week. said Brother Enoch.  
Clary shook her head. She couldn’t stay here in the infirmary for that long, staring at the cold white walls and being trapped in her thoughts. Her thoughts were not a place she wanted to spend long in, currently. They were too filled with images of the angelic warrior she had loved, who had loved her back, who was dead.  
“I can’t be here for a week,” she said, her voice coming out hoarser than she’d expected. Brother Enoch showed no sign of having heard. He turned to Isabelle, obviously speaking to only her, then left. Isabelle put a hand on Clary’s shoulder, and used the other one to offer her a glass of water, which she took thankfully.  
She took a sip. “Isabelle, have you got a mirror?”  
“Yeah, why?”  
“I just want to see the damage.”  
Isabelle nodded and took out a pocket-sized mirror. She opened it up and handed it over.  
Clary’s face was a patchwork of angry red skin and blister. Her forehead, where she’d accidentally brushed earlier, was one of the worse areas, but her eyes were drawn to her cheek. It had a circle of stitches running around an area of skin that was raised and red, but not as blistered as the rest. “Shit.”  
“It’ll heal in no time, you won’t look like this for the rest of your life. Soon, there’ll be nothing left but a badass scar and a story of the time you took a demon-full of ichor to the face and came out able to breathe and see and do all those other things that faces tend to do.”  
Clary laughed. “Still, a week in the infirmary? Brother Enoch saved my face from ichor just to leave me to die of boredom instead.”  
“You can probably stay in your own room, now that the majority of the medical work has been done. Plus, he told me that you’re allowed to leave your room, as long as you don’t go fighting any more demons or do anything that involves “unnecessarily exerting yourself”.” Isabelle took back the mirror when Clary handed it to her, and put it back in her pocket where it belonged. “C’mon, I’ll walk you to your room.”  
Obliging and getting up from her bed, Clary felt her pocket for a weight that wasn’t there. “Hey, where’s my phone? And my stele?”  
“Oh, sorry, they’re in your gear, which should be in your wardrobe.”  
When they got to Clary’s room, Isabelle busied herself with making sure everything was perfect for Clary: fluffing up her pillows, straightening the already perfect rows of pencils and paintbrushes on top of her chest of drawers, brushing dust off of the tops of picture frames… She seemed to think Clary was some kind of invalid. Clary voiced that thought, and Isabelle laughed.  
“You burned your face off to shield me from an exploding demon, I think I owe it to you to look after you.”  
After there was nothing left in the room to neaten, Isabelle knelt by the side of Clary’s bed. Clary had sighed and begun flipping through one of the art magazines she kept on her bedside table when it became apparent that Isabelle was going to tidy everything in the room, whether Clary wanted her to or not.  
“That design’s cool,” said Isabelle, pointing at an elegant picture with a black background and two ribbons—red and white—twirling around each other.  
“Yeah, it’s like DNA strands.”  
Isabelle frowned. “What’s DNA?”  
“DNA?” Clary was bewildered. “Do Shadowhunters really know that little about mundane medicine? That’s unbelievab—” She broke off when she saw that Isabelle was struggling to contain a smile. “You nearly had me there,” she said, smiling herself, then wincing slightly from the pain.  
“Shadowhunters are pretty blind to mundane developments in science. I, however, have an internet connection, so I have access to most things the mundies find out.”  
Clary shuffled across her bed to make a space for Isabelle, and patted the mattress next to her. Isabelle got in, and Clary grabbed another magazine for Isabelle to look at.  
“This one’s less about artsy stuff and more about mundane celebrity drama,” she explained. “Most of it’s either overexaggerated or plain garbage, but it’s entertaining anyway.”  
Eyeing the flashy headlines of the magazine, intrigued, Isabelle opened it and began reading. Some of the funnier stories, she’d read aloud, making Clary laugh, but they spent most of the rest of the morning in comfortable silence, reading their separate magazines. At some point, Clary’s head had fallen onto Isabelle’s shoulder, and she’d left it there while reading.  
“Hey, Clary,” she said, having just read a particularly hilarious headline. “Listen to this: ‘My Boyfriend Cheated On Me With My Mom; Now He’s My Stepdad’. These magazines are so strange, I don’t know how anyone could believe the stories in them.”  
There was no response. Isabelle looked over and realised that Clary had fallen asleep on her, magazine still open in her lap. It was about midday, but Brother Enoch had mentioned that Clary needed a lot of rest, so Isabelle didn’t want to wake her.  
She sat there for a few minutes, finishing her magazine, before remembering she actually had things to do other than function as a human pillow for Clary. The happy, freed state she’d been in whilst they were together was replaced with her usual state of constant mild panic and heavy responsibility.  
As slowly and carefully as she could, Isabelle lifted Clary’s head—being sure to avoid the burns on her face—and placed it on the pillow. She gingerly stepped out of the bed, and smiled when she got up and Clary still seemed to be sleeping. Mission accomplished. Isabelle headed out of the room, shutting the door gently behind her.


End file.
